8955.000 Sphaeranthus L.

Annual or perennial herbs, usually aromatic and glandular. Leaves alternate. Capitula heterogamous, few-flowered, arranged on a receptacle in dense hemispheric, ovoid or spherical clusters, which are terminal on the stems and branches or in the axils of the leaves. Tips of the bracts of the clusters and the bisexual florets usually purple. Subtending bracts of the capitula 2-4(-15), sometimes forming a basal involucre. Bisexual florets in the centre of the capitulum, fewer than the outer female florets. Achenes ± cylindric or ellipsoid. In this genus, the apparent capitulum is in fact a cluster of capitula. Note - a similar purple-flowered species with winged stems usually growing in marshy places is Epaltes gariepina.

Derivation of name: from sphaeros, a globe and antho, a flower, referring to the spherical form of the flower heads.

Worldwide: 38 species in the Old World tropics, extending to Iran and Egypt

Zimbabwe: 8 taxa.